I don’t have a vote in any organization, but I’ll post what my ballot would look like for MVP and Cy Young. I do not hold to the idea that a pitcher should not win the MVP Award, but I do value position players more highly.
Among the position players there are four that stand out. Jonathan Lucroy of the Brewers, Andrew McCutchen of the Pirates, Anthony Rendon of the Nationals, and Giancarlo Stanton of the Marlins. On the pitching side, there is Clayton Kershaw.
Rendon is a pick that is likely flying under the radar. He was the best player on the best team in the National League. He scored 111 runs to lead the league, and drove in 83, mostly hitting second. That’s the same number of runs plus RBI as Stanton. He also made a positive defensive contribution, and probably moved Ryan Zimmerman off third-base permanently.
Lucroy is a catcher, and according to FanGraphs, a good defensive catcher. He hit a ton of doubles, drew a ton of walks, and played nearly every day. One of my rules of thumb is that good offensive catchers deserve a lot of credit in the MVP voting, since they are a scarce commodity.
McCutchen, of course, is an MVP candidate nearly every season. His .355 BABIP was even higher than Stanton’s .353.
Stanton led the league in home runs despite missing 17 games. He helped the Marlins to a better than expected season.
Kershaw leads in WAR for the NL at both FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference. My main concern with Kershaw is that he did miss part of the season, so he did not have a chance to wear down. That said, given his past performance, there’s no reason to believe he would wear down.
So Kershaw’s WAR wins the day. It’s tough for me to choose between Rendon and Lucroy for second place, given my love of run scorers and catchers. Here are my top ten choices: